calbert:that's definitely the dumbest headline for the linked-to story.

story makes no such claims as to "putting a jet inside another jet"

I'm not even going to continue correcting subby... I guess I just expected more out of the admins to you know, maybe actually read and comprehend the submitted articles without just doling out charity greens because an unfunny and over-played headline meme was used.

Sounds like someone is 0 for 922 on links submitted. No wonder you are bitter. I had 5 links accepted, back in the day before sponsored content. Back when it was safe to not lock your doors at night, and neighbors knew each others names.

I'm not even going to continue correcting subby... I guess I just expected more out of the admins to you know, maybe actually read and comprehend the submitted articles without just doling out charity greens because an unfunny and over-played headline meme was used.

AltheaToldMe:costermonger: All my experience in formation flying has been in the same type of aircraft as my lead or wing, but I think an airliner in cruise doing pretty much the worst thing (straight, level and fast) a lead could do for the wing to join up short of actually maneuvering to avoid him. Without a bunch of excess speed available, that's going to be a long, slow process.

This would explain climbing above the service ceiling of the 777 to 45,000' This extra altitude could be traded for speed to catch up with the SIA68 flight in just a few minutes as opposed to changing relative mach which would take some time to possible catch the SIA flight.

bigbobowski:speaking as a former u.s. army air traffic controller. having spent time in Germany for three Reforger exercises. and time in little place called Granada.I got nothin'.however if you see me on a flight, you can "thank me for my service" by buying me drinks!

Thanks for your service - didn't know there was an Army base in Granada, Spain

speaking as a former u.s. army air traffic controller. having spent time in Germany for three Reforger exercises. and time in little place called Granada.I got nothin'.however if you see me on a flight, you can "thank me for my service" by buying me drinks!

Theaetetus:For reference, with a pulse with of 1 microsecond, radar can't detect targets separated by less than 150m... The mandated separation for a heavy plane (777) following another heavy plane is 4 nautical miles due to wake turbulence. Now, you can get closer, but less than 150m? And stay there for an hour while you fly over India?

Let's pretend for a moment that MH370 was 500 feet below and 500 feet behind - a total of about 215 m away tail to nose. This should be far enough below to be out of wake turbulence at that range and far enough behind to maintain track visually through the cockpit windows (together with knowing the filed flight plan and listening to ATC conversation).

Let's then also pretend you're a bored radar operator in a third world country in the middle of the night. Do you think you'd really care (or even be able to notice, depending on age of the equipment) that the radar return from a flight that is *supposed* to be there is twice the size it should be - a return accompanied by a transponder response tied to a large aircraft to begin with?

The Malaysians apparently didn't care at the time that MH370 flew back across the country and it *wasn't* supposed to be there. If this is what happened I doubt anyone in the region could either detect the separate aircraft or care if they did at the time they did.

This theory is as good as any other at this point. The only theories I don't put much into are the ones where the plane just drops out of the sky - and that's probably my bias based on the 777's illustrious history.

For the duration of the flight they were disassembling the plane piece by piece and dropping the parts to awaiting boats that transported them to be reassembled in an Iranian megafortress.Got a little tricky there near the end but they managed somehow.

ongbok: And before you say that is ridiculous, look at how incompetent this whole thing has been handled by the Malaysians so far. There have been a few times that some official has run to the cameras to declare some new development and it turned out to be completely wrong or some information that the investigators later deny. And if this happened with the radar blip, I think they are to embarrassed to admit it was a mistake.

Based on INMARSAT pings, at the last ping, the plane was somewhere along these two arcs:Last night on the NBC evening news, someone apparently told the graphics guy to go make up a map showing a couple of arcs around Australia and Indonesia. And this was the result:Which clearly means that Sir Mix-A-Lot is behind the whole thing./Heh, heh. "Behind."

For reference, with a pulse with of 1 microsecond, radar can't detect targets separated by less than 150m... The mandated separation for a heavy plane (777) following another heavy plane is 4 nautical miles due to wake turbulence. Now, you can get closer, but less than 150m? And stay there for an hour while you fly over India?

For a short time, yeah... After all, if sandpeople can ride in single file to hide their numbers, surely planes can, too...

... until your flight path is no longer directly in line with the radar station, that is. Then, unless the following plane is right on the ass of the leading plane, there will be separation in the returns. And even if it is, you get a return that will be too long.

It depends on the resolution of the radar, of course, but this theory would also require that the radar over a major flight corridor, normally filled with planes following other planes, is low resolution enough that it can't detect separation between two planes of a few hundred meters? And this in a country that is constantly worried about attacks from its neighbor?